On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 18:10:49 -0000, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:


"Andy Hall" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 11:19:12 -0000, "Mary Fisher"


The best investment that you could make, Mary, would be to insulate
and draughtproof the place.

You must either be joking or have an unusual garage/workshop.

Not at all. It's a single leaf brick built large garage with pitched
roof, felted and tiled.

I decided that if I was going to use the space properly then it needed
to be dry, raised to a reasonable temperature for comfortable working.
Costed out in terms of running costs, I reckoned that I could recover
the cost of the materials in about three years. It looks on track to
achieve that. Plus I don't have issues with extreme variations in
temperature and humidity, so it makes dealing with materials easier as
well.



Our hasn't had a car in it for many years. The walls, when they're not
concealed by large and heavy machinery or benches, are covered with shelves
and cupboards. It would be nigh on impossible to get all that stuff out to
insulate - although when we built it we used blocks with a good insulating
integrity.

I simply bit the bullet, threw out a load of stuff that was unneeded
anyway and stacked the rest. It was worth the effort.

When the door is shut there are no draughts. It's not an old,
falling apart wooden garage, rotting in the corners. It's solid with double
glazed windows (which have shelves across them) and the solid, thick wooden
roof is clad internally and felted externally.

That's not too bad, probably. You could quite easily reduce the
heat loss by a half to two thirds.


But when you're working with no heat from say 9 to 7, with a break for lunch
(which is what he likes to do) in today's temperature it gets cold. Worse,
the materials and tools he works with are cold.

I think that that's the point. It's a miserable experience having
to do that and demotivating into the bargain.




Before doing that, to reach a reasonable temperature of say 18 degrees ...

That's far higher than he'd need.

It depends on what you want and what you're doing. I don't really
want to dress up in anoraks and thick woolies because they get in the
way.



I like the other Andy's suggestion and shall put it to Spouse over dinner
tonight, when he's well fed, wined and warmed.

I guess that you have to look at what your needs are. Personally, I
don't want to be restricted to just keeping warm in one place. I
want to be able to easily use the whole space and have a low running
cost to do so.








--

..andy

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